The Expendables

Stallone has done it again! With ROCKY BALBOA he reminded us why we love the character Rocky. RAMBO gave us a mission we'll never forget and Stallone sent our favorite vet home. Now with THE EXPENDABLES Stallone reminded us of the glory days of 80's action movies. Back in the day if you were fans of these movies you know you had talks with friends about how cool it'd be to see a movie with Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Van Damme, and whoever else all together in the mix! The movie we dreamed about wasn't exactly the movie we got, because in reality that would probably not be as cool as we thought. With THE EXPENDABLES what we have is old fashioned cheesy (in a good way) 80's and early 90's action! This my friends is Tango & Cash not Jason Bourne!

I don't think Stallone could gave gathered a better group of guys. The fact that Jason Statham is in this proves Stallone knows what he is doing. Dolph Lundgren back on the big screen is major too! He's already made his comeback but I still get that welcome back feeling when I see Mickey Rourke on screen! And the scene with the “three” at the church, let's just say it's my favorite non action scene of the film. I sure hope Schwarzenegger comes back to Hollywood when he's done with politics? I can see him make a comeback as a Dirty Harry tough guy type or something! I almost forgot Eric Roberts having an awesome time playing the villain. It's just great casting all around.

The story of THE EXPENDABLES is simple: Group of mercenary's for hire that take on missions the devil himself would pass on are offered a job to take out a dictator and slime ball ex C.I.A agent. Barney and his second in command go and get a lay of the land and decide to pass on the mission but not without having a little fun first. This little “escapade” gets the groups cute informant in trouble. Shortly thereafter Barney decides he's going back to save her. That's all you really need to know at this point.

Sadly this movie may fall victim to being labeled as “dumb macho fun” but truth be told deep within the clunky dialogue the film does have deep character development. Just listen and watch (this is a motion picture and these guys can act) when these men are interacting with each other. It's some of the best performance's we've seen from these guys in awhile. Dolph is especially amazing in this! His DTV (direct to video) work these past few years is pretty good for DTV.

The only thing I had a problem with was how some of the action scenes were edited. The car chase scene was just way too jerky and confusing; however, Jet Li was a bad ass in this scene! I loved the movie but scratch my head at some of the editing of action, especially after what Stallone showed us in RAMBO.

Overall THE EXPENDABLES is one of the best movies I've seen this year!